Today was a magical camino day. Also, **Happy Birthday, Cory!!**
We said goodbye to Dean Matt in the morning before starting our walk. We walked past the cathedral one last time before boarding a bus to a small town called Villares de Orbigo to start our walk to Astorga and eventually on to Murias de Richavaldo. Today's walk was open farm fields with beautiful poppies popping through long fields of wheat, and you better believe I mentioned Sting's Fields of Gold no less than 3 times while walking. Mom, I have clear memories of listening to Sting's Ten Summoner's Tales on cassette tape in the Oldsmobile Silhouette and can probably still name the track list in order.
The real highlights from today were the cafe stops. A few miles into the trek, we came across this amazing respite that we referred to as "The Oasis" that had an incredible spread of food ranging from hard boiled eggs to squeeze-your-own orange juice, and we supplemented our second breakfast with existing cheese from La Casa de los Quesos. When I asked Cory and Jeff what they remembered about the Oasis, they both immediately responded with "orange juice," and Jeff added "dogs." We got to speak with other pilgrims and spend time in community. We met a woman named Marissa, who I will mention later.
I'm putting a reminder to myself to go back to previous entries and add information about other good cafe stops, including the food truck on the hill climb with Jeff and Matt and the blue respite where we had a fantastic trail picnic.
After the Oasis, lots of walking. Lots of planted forests. We stopped off at a roadside craft table and spoke with Joe, who made unique metal wrappings--we all purchased a few and discussed the beauty of community.
We eventually made it into Astorga, which was the historical capital of the area. One of the best features of the walk was a small chapel that contained a sculpture of what we referred to as "Skinned Shin Jim" or "Shinned Skin Jim" who was accompanied by his dog with a piece of bread in its mouth. We named the dog Tortilla. Jeff posted about Skinned Shin Jim and was gently and swiftly corrected by a colleague that the sculpture is not of Santiago but rather Saint Roche. The skinned shin is a plague sore and he is identified in iconography by the dog that brought him bread while he was sick and his shin. The more you know...(cue the NBC shooting star)
The walk into Astorga was full of fascinating street art and sculptures, so I'll add some of those photos later. In Astorga, we invited Marissa to have lunch with us, and we dined on two different kinds of paella (negro and mixta). Marissa is doing the Camino for spiritual purposes, and it was a pleasure to hear her journey and what she hopes to experience while completing the Camino.
From lunch, Jeff and Cory and I got into a "spirited, thoughtful, passionate, philosophical" discussion about the merits of going off trail to visit the Gaudi house in Astorga. As a professional lazy person, I loathe going off trail and made my point very clear. Lucky for all parties involved, the Gaudi house, was, in fact, very much on trail, and this unique feature of the house was pointed out by both of my colleagues on at least...a few occasions.
A few more miles of walking and a few Aquariuses later, we eventually made it to la Casa de Aguedas, otherwise known as Juan's place. I think I did a pretty thorough discription of Juan's amazing albergue last time, so feel free to revist that post. That said, this time, there were kittens. Like, really tiny kittens. 4 week old kitties and 1 week old kitties, and out there somewhere, there's a cat that needs a vasectomy. We saw the tuxedo mother nursing both litters.
Prior to dinner, the group spent several hours in Juan's lovely yard, where activities ranged from keepy uppy with the world's most deflated volleyball that would make even Tom Brady blush, sunset gazing, bocce, paddle ball, a student presentation on the evolution of the camino, including the responsibilities of the hospitaleros (the hosts of the albergues). Deya presented on "empty Spain," referring to how the youth are leaving rural areas of Spain to live in larger cities.
Juan provided our group with a delicious dinner and a sound bath (or what we are referring to as a sound nap), Cory got to jam on his new backpacking guitar, and we all appreciated how beautiful the rooms and stonework are in this space. Much appreciation to Deya for maintaining solid friendships with the hospitaleros and finding us incredible places to stay. Solid, solid day.
No comments:
Post a Comment